County commissioners send wrong message with raise

Blogwatch - Lauren on Lake - OrlandoSentinel.com/laurenonlake

December 27, 2009|By Lauren Ritchie, Orlando Sentinel

The boo-hooing at a recent Lake County Commission meeting got loud.

Acting County Manager Sandy Minkoff described next year's budget in the most grim of terms. If the county's tax roll were to drop by 15percent -- that's a dramatic amount -- then commissioners might have to raid their savings for $20 million to make the budget balance.

They talked about having a little chat with the sheriff to get him to reduce expenses for law enforcement, and Commissioner Jimmy Conner predicted there would be "pain" involved to make the budget balance.

So what's the first thing they did after this discussion? They gave an employee making nearly $106,000 a raise of $14,000.

Huh?

No, you didn't miss anything. It's just the County Commission taking incomprehensible action that can't be justified.

The cash goes to Melanie Marsh, who is the assistant to Minkoff, the county attorney. But while he is serving as interim county manager, she'll be getting the extra pay to take his place.

Is Marsh worth the money? That's not the question. Plenty of other employees are worth far more than they're making. And it's likely that some stand in for their bosses when they are gone. Should they, too, get extra money while their boss is filling in elsewhere?

In an environment where dozens of county employees have been laid off, more cuts are on the horizon, and employees are putting up with furloughs in hopes of hanging on to their jobs, it is just plain wrong to jack up the salaries of those making more than $100,000 a year. It's a kick in the teeth to every $12-an-hour county worker who is struggling to keep his or her home and hold a family together.

How can commissioners be so far out of touch? What can they be thinking?

Ex-columnist, teacher launches education blog

Remember Mike Archer, the columnist at the Lake edition of the Orlando Sentinel before me?

Back about 2001, Mike decided that he'd had all he could enjoy of journalism, and he bailed out.

I thought it was a smart move on his part until I learned that he was going into teaching. Ha, ha, ha. Clearly, the man had gone insane.

Now, Mike has started a blog for the reading enjoyment of the public. It's going to contain his thoughts on everything from goings-on in the classroom to how learning works to the politics of education.

Here's the address of the blog. It's worth keeping up with. It will for sure make you do some thinking about Lake County schools: mike-archer.blogspot.com.